The Mother of All Compromise
by halfeatenmoon
Summary: Kyon wants to be a father. Haruhi doesn't want to get pregnant. A short fic on the unusual ways that Kyon and Haruhi deal with the inevitable compromises of marriage.


Some stories are written with a purpose. This one, I wrote because I can.

The Mother of All Compromise

So it all came down to this. Three years of marriage, even more years of companionship, about eighteen months of talking and arguing all seemed like a long time in Kyon's quest to be a father. For it all to end with a little plastic stick of a pregnancy test in the bathroom one evening, sitting there by the sink between his toothbrush and Haruhi's box of hair ribbons, seemed anticlimactic, to say the least.

It was also not the joyous moment that Kyon had expected. Oh, he wanted children. He still didn't doubt that. He had always liked children, but ever since he and Haruhi moved into a house together, even before they were married, it had become an almost unbearable longing. It had also been the main source of disagreement in their house.

"I like kids, Kyon," she always said, with the same frown on her face. "But I'm not ready for that yet."

After a while, he started to respond with "It's better to have kids while you're younger, you know. Your body's better equipped for it."

After a few months of _that_ argument, Haruhi started to lose the patience she'd gained over the years and bring out her old, abrasive self. "And you know what, Kyon? It's _my_ body. It's easy enough for you to say you want to have children. It doesn't take an awful lot of effort on _your_ part, does it?" Then she would cross her arms over her stomach, protectively. When she was feeling more vulnerable, she might say something like 'I'm scared of having a human being growing inside me,' but usually she retorted 'If you think having children is worth carrying a melon on _your_ stomach for nine months and then ripping your lower body apart at the end of it, then I might consider it.'

Kyon had yet to find a comeback to that one.

And given that a baby was on the way, it looked like he would never be able to. Now he was sorry for fighting with Haruhi about it. No matter how much he wanted children, he wanted the timing to be something they agreed on, not a rude shock. Not like this.

But he should have known when he married Haruhi Suzumiya that his life was always going to be full of rude shocks.

"Er, Haruhi?" He stuck his head around the bathroom door to where Haruhi was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a book as she ignored the evening news on TV. "Haruhi, something's happened."

She looked up, innocently. "What's the matter? Something wrong with the plumbing? Is the hot water out again?"

"No, it's…" Kyon scratched his head. "On the sink there's a…"

She was glaring at him with bored annoyance, and she wanted to get back to her book. "A spider? What is it? I don't have all night."

"Er. Well. I'm pregnant."

Haruhi's face was blank for a full three seconds before it split into a wicked grin and she started cackling like a maniac.

"You did this on purpose!"

"No, no, I didn't mean to!" She was crying with laughter and wiping her eyes, trying to regain some composure. "I'm sorry, Kyon, I still can't always control how this works. It must have just… because I know you want to have kids so badly and I really don't want to have to be pregnant and… I guess this is what my subconscious worked out."

"What am I going to do?" Kyon felt like he was going to be sick. Haruhi stopped laughing at the sight of his ashen face, although she couldn't quite wipe the smile off hers as she gently sat him down on the couch.

"We'll work it out, Kyon," she promised, patting his hand. "I really don't know how this happened, but I'll make sure you and the baby get through this just fine."

"Can't you get rid of it?"

She looked at him, seriously. "Is that what you want?"

"I've learnt my lesson, okay, I shouldn't have pushed you so hard…"

"I'm not trying to teach you a lesson, Kyon! I didn't do this deliberately! I wanted a solution to all our fights and then this just… happened."

"But you could make it go away just as easily, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, once I figure out how." She bit her lip and looked at him seriously. "Is that really what you want, though? I mean… I don't really know what this is either. And I know it's a huge shock for you. But if you're really pregnant, then that's… that's your baby. _Our_ baby. I mean, of course, we don't know everything yet, but if that's the case, do you really want to just make it go away?"

Kyon gingerly, gently touched his stomach. "I don't know." He put his head in his hands. "I don't _know_, Haruhi!"

"It's okay, you don't have to decide tonight," she said, soothingly, as she rubbed his back. "But you should take some time to think about it. And it's all your decision. Whatever you want to do, I'll still love you."

She gave him a final hug, and then stood up. "Now, even if this isn't the time to celebrate just yet, I think the new expecting father deserves a snack!"

Haruhi strolled over into the kitchen, humming to herself as she pulled out a pan and some eggs from the fridge to make an omelette. When she managed to sneak a glance back towards Kyon, she saw that he was still, rather tentatively, brushing his fingers over his stomach as though he could quite believe what had happened. Well, he probably couldn't believe it had happened at all. Even Haruhi found it hard to believe, and she was the one who did it. But at least this time, Kyon was starting to smile.

END

If your cursor is now hovering above the review button, please read this before you write anything. One reader has already left a review with some comments about his views on abortion. I didn't intend this fic to be a serious discussion of reproductive ethics, although I realise I did show Kyon and Haruhi vaguely discussing options. I thought Kyon's reaction was a realistic one, even if the situation was absurd, and it's meant to be just that, realism, not a political comment.

While I respect that people have diverging opinions on the contentious issues involved in reproductive rights and ethics, and the right to express those opinions, I don't believe that the review page for this fic is the right place to have that debate. If people want to discuss abortion with respect to this fic, or simply discuss the issue itself, I suggest they do so on one of the forums for this fandom. While I will leave Mukuro's original review because he wrote it in good faith and before I made this decision, **any further reviews discussing abortion will be deleted**, regardless of their stance.

Thank you for reading, and I apologise for ending a fun fic on such a serious note.


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